How to tell if your Gmail account was hacked

The recent breach of Yahoo’s Yahoo Mail servers is the latest in a string of high-profile hacks that have taken center stage in the tech media lately. It seems that no service is safe from malicious hackers, who constantly come up with terrifying new ways to steal your data. Of course it’s not just wide-scale hacks we have to be afraid of — our various online accounts are always at risk. Google’s Gmail service is hugely popular so it’s often a target for hackers on the prowl. And considering how awful our passwords often are, hacking into Gmail isn’t always much of a challenge. As Tech2 noted on Friday, however, there’s a pretty easy way to find out if your account was hacked without waiting for your friends to email you asking why you’re suddenly peddling Viagra on behalf of a shady Vietnamese pharmacy.

Google provides all Gmail users with a quick and easy way to see what devices and IP addresses are accessing their accounts. To do it, simply scroll to the bottom of your inbox at Gmail.com and on the right side of the screen, you’ll see a message that says Last account activity: X minutes/hours/days ago. Beneath that line, you’ll see a link on the word “Details.”

Clicking that link will take you to a list of all the IP addresses and locations that have accessed your account recently. See something that doesn’t look familiar? Change your password immediately — and enabling two-factor authentication probably isn’t a bad idea either, as Tech2 notes.